Online Public Relations Thoughts

 When an individual or organization opts for transparency, it is hard to step back into secrecy in the future.  Hard, but not impossible.  This comment on the Vatican's exhaustive report into an American cardinal's sexual escapades is hopeful but not believable.  It might be true the present pope cannot retreat from his vow of openness, but that doesn't speak for popes to come.  It might well be a future pontiff reinstalls a shroud of secrecy over misdoings among the church hierarchy.  He would be criticized, but nothing could stop him, not even public pressure from the faithful.  The Roman Catholic Church is an authority unto itself.  It answers to no one in secular authority and as such is free to change rules and procedures.  This is not good but is a fact.  About the only outcome that might make a pope act might be a decline in the faithful who no longer believe the Church speaks for God on earth.  That is a reality already in First World countries where a fall in the Roman Catholic population is significant. Transparency might not put a stop to the deterioration but temporarily accelerate it because it demonstrates hypocrisy among the hierarchy.  There is no perfect path for the pope to follow, but he should be commended for acting transparently so far.